Wednesday, April 20, 2011

What does hypocrisy look like?

Previously on this Review, 20 examples of hypocrisy by Glenn Beck have been exposed here, here and here. This week the conservative Daily Caller ran a piece about Beck covering stories lifted from other right-wingers without attribution. Beck steals (uses without asking) stories and video some of the time but then does attribute some of his stories to others the rest of the time. On the very day the Daily Caller ran this piece, April 18th, Beck was on the radio ranting about "National Steal from Work Day." Within that hypocrisy is another one conveyed in the Daily Caller article: Beck lied about coming up with the slogan he's chosen for The Blaze. Beck lied about writing the slogan "Truth has no agenda." (He paid someone for it.)

Right wingers (conservatives and reactionaries) cited by Matthew Boyle, author of the DC hit piece, include Andrew Breitbart, who said, "sometimes he also uses other peoples’ work without crediting them, making it appear as though it were his own. But especially since adopting ‘The Truth Has No Agenda’ slogan – and trying to deliberately re-position himself as the pious conscience and judge of many of those he took content from – he has exposed himself to his new motto’s unforgiving standard,” Roger L. Simon of Pajamas Media, the Chicago based Rebel Pundit, Christian Hartsock, Mandy Nagy, a conservative blogger known online as Liberty Chick, John Sexton, who blogs at VerumSerum.com, said that Beck has "used our stuff without any hat tip at all. I don’t understand that" and Pamela Geller of AtlasShrugs.com said that Beck is "a thief." Not listed in the article, reactionary crank, Alex Jones, has been complaining about Beck using his material for some time.

Sign up today and help make Beck a richer man! He doesn't usually miss an opportunity to promote himself. At the bottom of the Steal from Work Day website is the following that Beck managed to not mention: "This website is intended as a rhetorical device only; in simple terms, it aims to uncover the already prevalent phenomenon of workplace theft, not to encourage those who otherwise would not commit such illegal acts," i.e., a lie of omission. He also didn't mention that many right-wing bloggers were accusing him of stealing their content without attribution until later in his broadcast.

In February of this year, Beck announced on the radio that he had created a new motto for his website, The Blaze. “This is the slogan that I wrote for The Blaze,” Beck said. “We’ve put it up everywhere here and we’ve written it out for The Blaze. And it is: ‘The truth has no agenda.’”

But in fact, this was not the truth. Beck did not write any such slogan for The Blaze. According to GoDaddy.com website domain name registration records, a man named Michael Opelka bought the domain “truthhasnoagenda.com” in July 2009. Beck has since hired Opelka to work for The Blaze. Shortly thereafter, Beck began selling “The Truth Has No Agenda” merchandise.

Beck addressed this Daily Caller article, but on his web page he did not provide a hot link to the DC story and for good reason. First, Beck claims that the Daily Caller accused him of stealing his "Truth has no agenda" slogan. That is another lie. They accused him of lying about originating it, and Beck lied to cover that lie up. He admits paying for the slogan, but so what? That obfuscates the accusation made by the Daily Caller.

Glenn Beck dot com offered a video of Beck giving attribution to various blogs and websites on his Fox show, but the DC article explained that he does often does give attribution. What Beck did not address are the many times that many right-wing bloggers claim that he did not.

Then the question was asked on Beck's website why the Daily Caller attacked Beck (without addressing any of the legitimate accusations being made in the DC piece). Recall that Beck's "news" site, TheBlaze, exposed the video of NPR from James O'Keefe to be an edited fraud and a hit job. That video was published on The Daily Caller. (Pay back is a bitch!) Beck added, "Now to follow up that bad NPR piece, they run another piece full of holes.” Except that it's Beck's explanation that is full of holes.

Beck did at least have the rare decency to apologize to people he used material from without attribution, sortof. "If I have not attributed somebody, I apologize for that." If? Glenn Beck never seems quite willing to accept responsibility for his character flaws. If? If Glenn Beck were an honorable man, he would stop qualifying his apologies with the word "if." If Glenn Beck were an honest man, he would admit that he's used other people's ideas without attribution and apologize without qualification.